Chris Schadler works for Xavier's Community Building Institute | March 4, 2012

Xavier’s Chris Schadler, a Cincinnati urban planner, music promoter and entrepreneur who works for Xavier's Community Building Institute, is chairing a panel and presenting at the “Second Global Conference on Urban Popcultures” in Prague, Czech Republic, from March 9-11. Schadler is focusing on the Over-the-Rhine and Northside neighborhoods of Cincinnati and will discuss how local music culture has positively affected each neighborhood’s quality of life.

His paper, "The Impact of Live Music Culture on Urban Quality of Life," focuses on the impact a live music scene has on an urban neighborhood once it becomes part of its culture. The music scene is a cultural phenomenon that attracts people to urban areas, which in turn helps reduce crime by bringing more eyes onto the streets. Schadler claims the impact has been tremendously positive in Over-the-Rhine, an older German neighborhood that borders Cincinnati's downtown, and Northside. Citing his own experiences, as well as interviews with notable Cincinnati figures Jim Tarbell, Jim Blase and Dan McCabe, Schadler demonstrates how a city’s local music scene and the culture it produces can help change urban neighborhoods for the better.

Schadler has worked for the Community Building Institute at Xavier on a diverse set of neighborhood initiatives since 2005. His current work includes project management of an effort to memorialize King Records, where R&B singer James Brown got his start. Schadler is an entrepreneur and partner of the new live music venue MOTR Pub in Over The Rhine. He is also a local musician who has played in the Cincinnati music scene for decades, currently in the band Fists of Love. He relies on his 15 years of experience as a local Rock and Roll promoter to round out his perceptions of the urban landscape in Cincinnati.

The “Second Global Conference on Urban Popcultures” is an inter- and multi-disciplinary conference to examine, explore and critically engage with issues related to urban life. It promotes ongoing analysis of the varied creative trends and alternative cultural movements that comprise urban popcultures and subcultures. In particular, it encourages theoretical and practical debates surrounding the cultural and political contexts in which alternative urban subcultures flourish.